The New Trend in Video: Moving Beyond Polished Reels to Storytelling | Outliers

Have you ever asked yourself, why is it that some people seem to constantly outperform their potential, call them an outlier? Well, other people with the best of intentions fall dramatically below or just below their expectations. And listen, they're not bad people. They said big goals, but they don't align their behaviors with what it is they want to accomplish. The next seven shows, this quick little series I'm doing, where I'm interviewing the outliers. What's the psychology? What's the mindset? What do they do that cause them to outperform their potential? Enjoy the show. Hey, so welcome back to outliers. Today I have the Shannon Gillette second time on the pod first time on outliers. Am I right there, Shannon? I mean, third time on the podcast because I forgot 2020 was the first time I was just a baby back then. That's right. That, okay, that was a fun one because wasn't that like a like a random, you know, one person's going to win something on Instagram and like the perfect person one. You posted on Instagram and said tag who you want to see on Instagram. So I called up all my friends and said, put my name in here. And then Tom Ferris probably like who Shannon Gillette? Well, well, hey, now the world knows my dear, because you have just been on a terror. So, so for my friend that's listening, obviously, you know, send in every relationship. We can banter back and forth and have fun. I've asked her to be on the show because she's just had remarkable growth. And what I observe talking with her, you know, seeing or sort of inaction is she's also got this giant heart for leadership and the way she runs her business and the way she treats her clients. So we want to get into all of that and more, but maybe just maybe Shannon for the person that has never been exposed to you hasn't hasn't, you know, had the chance to connect the way I have or your coach has. Could you take a minute and just walk us through from 2020 to today? How much is the business grown and how much is it changed just so the listener has some context? Well, sir, surreal to be here because it feels like it wasn't too long ago. I had no money, no clients, no Instagram followers. And I was literally going on Facebook pages trying to find somebody that wanted to rent a home. $200 to fix the brakes on my use Honda Odyssey minivan. And it has taken a lot of hard work, but I'm proud to sit here today leading the top producing medium sized team in the entire country at Real Broker. I sell alongside a team of 11 agents with a great support staff and we're on track to sell over 300 homes this year with most of our clients coming directly to us saying, will you take on my listing? Yeah. Yeah. So if you go back to 2020, which is remarkable to think is, you know, we're sitting here on whatever April 2026, it does feel like it just went by that fast. So you had the pandemic run. You came out of the pandemic and like many people, you know, you put the right systems in place. You put the right strategy in place. You are authentically yourself. You continue to grow when a lot of people maybe struggled in the change of, you know, 8% interest rates, longer sales cycles. So if you look back from like 2020, just keep us like a sense of like transactions, how many transactions in 2020 versus 21 versus 22 versus 23 to 300 this year? 2020. I was pretty much a solo agent. It was just me, my TC, my videographer. I brought on one agent right at the beginning of 2020. So I never really wanted to have a team, but I've almost been forced into building a team because I have so much inbound business and my inbound business is coming from staying consistent on social media, really sharing my personal brand to I am besides my job posting at least five Instagram stories a day. And I have had this crazy goal to build the best listing marketing plan I can in my market. And I can confidently walk in and meet with any seller and share with them that we can get their home a level of exposure. That's impossible for any of my competition to beat. So when I started to build Instagram and then also listing marketing, a marketing plan where even home builders are calling us up saying like, will you list our model homes? It's been so cool because we're getting thousands and thousands of views on our YouTube videos. I love it. I love it. So, so what what did you do last year and what did you do in 2024 just for context? Last year we saw we closed just just right around 250 homes this year on track over 300 homes. That's bananas. So you got to be pretty proud. I want to I want to I want to dovetail though and I want to talk about leadership. So so my note was like, you didn't want to have a team, but you had so much inbound. You sort of just had to create it. Otherwise, you were going to create a bad consumer experience on med expectations, etc. How would you describe your leadership style today? Well, I've built my team the non-traditional way. I don't know of another team leader that operates the way I do. For every one agent we bring on our team, we probably have 40 applicants. We've built a brand and a culture that is hard to replicate. Like I don't know if any other team doing what we're doing plus with the marketing and in that brand and really one of my first teammates was hiring a coach. And I'll never forget my first coaching call when it was really just me, my TC and my videographer. And it was just down to the basics of like figuring out your hourly rate and that we shouldn't be doing anything below our hourly rate. And just she's really pushed me to grow a team because I'm very like anti growth. It feels really uncomfortable because it's a big deal to bring a teammate into our into our team. So it's been amazing. So why is that? Why do you think it's so uncomfortable to bring somebody in? Like there's obviously there's something there that you're like, it's got to be right. But what is it? First they have to align with all of our core values. We have a very strict policy on our team. I consider gossiping or complaining a form of stealing. And you're not just stealing a staple or you're stealing from our culture. You're stealing time. You're stealing energy. So you have to have that mindset to be part of the Jalek group. Like we all help one another. We're here to serve our clients at a very high level. So it's hard to find that. And then when you build such a great culture, just thinking obviously about man, what if you make the wrong decision and you bring in the wrong person and it's easier for me to just say, nope, like I get so many agents at semi-DM's on Instagram and applications like, are you hiring? Are you hiring? And I'm just like, not right now. Not right now. Okay, I know I'm interrupting the show, but check this out. You know, when I built my business back in 2004, I was very clear. Whoever gives away the most high value content for FREE free is going to win the game. And I think it's one of the big reasons why my company and my 193 coaches have been named the number one coaching and training company in real estate for 12 years going. But my question is, like, we do all this stuff on content and, you know, video podcasts. But if you ever been to TomFairy.com/tools, TomFairy.com/tools, T-O-O-L-S, if you've never been, you should check that out today because there is so many playbooks, systems, strategies, marketing, hacks, tactics from top agents, from coaches. There's so much there. If you thought the podcast is good, TomFairy.com/tools, check it out and then send me a DM on your favorite social channel and let me know what you think. Hey, I'm interrupting my own show with a little PSA. What are you doing? August 3rd through the 5th. Well, it's going to be my 23rd. Maybe my 24th. I should probably know that. Annual success summit worth thousands of the best agents from around the world gather for networking, idea exchange, and making strong commitment. So September through December are better than they were the year before. So I'd love you to write down those dates. And if you're interested, check out TomFairy.com/success. That's TomFairy.com/success to find out the best ticket rate because I can't wait to see a face to face in August. Do not miss this. Mark your calendars. Get it in there and I'll see you the summit. Now back to the show. There's something to, I mean, obviously when you have that much demand and you want to limit the supply, but are you finding, you know, are you seeing constraints of growth in that strategy? Like if you took on a few more people, could you help them a few more clients and not disrupt the status quo or the standard that you put in place? Yes. And that is also something that I have to thank my coach for because that was one thing that really helped me grow to us having 11 agents now. It's like Shannon, you have so much inbound business. You're not going to be able to serve your clients at a high level. And then when you start thinking of that, it's like, man, why not grow more? Yeah. So, so give us context before we sort of unpack a lot of the outlier conversation. Some people would argue and certainly I know many of the people that I work with, they have very similar numbers when it comes to like per person productivity. If you took 11 salespeople, 300 transactions, you know, you're in the range of like, you know, 28 transactions, 27 transactions per person, which is insanely great. How much of it though are you still involved in? Like, what percentage of the listing appointments do you go on versus not go on? Are you still actively taking out buyers? Or do you have teammates that support you in that? Help us understand that part. As a team leader, I'm still very much involved in production mainly on the listing side. So I do currently have close to two. 20 of my own active listings. A buyer side, I really, you know, partner up with my teammates to help buyers out, but I'm still in production, still serving clients, still going on those listing consults. - So I had a feeling that was the case. I was thinking about the mastermind we were at. You were there, a bunch of our, you know, great clients were there. We were sitting in my living room, you were sitting with my wife, Kathy, and I was watching your phone just go, (imitates humming) how do you manage that? I mean, you have so much in, like, Ken Poseco, I know you know, who's a great personal client of mine. He's on pace to do eight-entertransactions. It's almost all from his YouTube channel, right? It's a lot of end time. How do you manage that? And what do you say to the person that maybe struggles with managing what feels like maybe 20 or 30 balls in the air at all times? - I think it took me a long time to realize that I really need that staff for a long time, even up into like a year and a half ago. I was the team leader in production. The team was coming to me for everything. We didn't have a director of operations. So getting that director of operations role filled has really helped, I've hired an executive assistant to help me with that. I'll never forget about that. My mastermind, which was amazing, and I highly recommend everybody goes to this, but you looked at me and you're like, "Shannon, too many people have access to you." Like, my phone doesn't stop, but I just, I don't know. I'm just so grateful for it, right? Because I remember when I had no clients and it's a work in progress, but I have such an incredible team. They are so good at what they do. And honestly, in many ways, they could serve clients better than I can. So that helps. So I have, I'd say about 75% of my inbound leads are going back out to the team and I'm still handling my own listing, more the luxury side. - Sure, sure. So let's get into the weeds on this outlier conversation. You remember in January, when I basically exposed everybody, because we have now, like, it's like 300,000 hours of anonymized, meaning no personal, you know, you don't know who's saying what conversations and coaching were able to really dictate exactly or know exactly precisely the emotional sentiment of our clients, what's working, what's not working. So I want to get into some of that behavioral stuff. So I'm curious, like for you, there's been times in your career as a leader as an individual when, you know, you weren't achieving the goal. When you're in that state, where you're not achieving the goal, what is your strategy to get yourself back on track, to pivot, to adjust? 'Cause it happens to all of us. So what's your play? What do you do? - Well, we've recently implemented something in our team that is helping so much because I hate to admit this, but about a year ago, I got fired from a listing. It was a $2 million listing, and I had done everything, like, incredible exposure. We were getting showings. Like I was working so hard behind the scenes, and I rarely get fired from listings. The goal is to not get fired from any listings, right? But I'm selling in Phoenix, where the average home is taking two to three months to sell. Sellers are not selling for fun right now. Like they have to sell for whatever reason they've hired us to represent their biggest asset, which is a big deal. So the marketing side of things we do really well. And this seller called me up and they're like, "Hey, we're gonna take our home off the market, do some remodeling, of course, take it off the market." And then a week later, I see it's listed with another agent. And I know what I did wrong. It was a lack of communication. And as agents, we work really hard behind the scenes, but agents overall are just failing and giving their sellers updates. 30% of our listings are listing takeovers. It means that listings have been on the market at least once with another agent over the past year. I'm constantly going into home, sitting at dining room tables, where there's another agent signed in the yard. And they wanna let that agent go. And when I ask the sellers, why do you wanna move in another direction? I would assume it's a lack of marketing, because agents are still marketing their homes the same way they did 10 years ago. But nine times out of 10, it's a lack of communication. They feel they have to reach out to their agent to get any updates. So recently as a team, we implemented Beacon, which I know you're familiar with every week on Friday. Our sellers are getting the most beautiful detailed sellers report. They can see exactly how many thousands of views they had on their YouTube video that week and all of the data. And I am proud to say I've not been fired from a listing since that day. - You know, the origin of that was the Don't Fire Me report by the extraordinary coach, Lordus, who's been on this show and a great friend. And then my partner is Chris Smith and Jimmy Macon. We're like, I think we can automate this. So thank you for that shout out. It is remarkable how fast that company has grown, but there's no marketing. It's just great agents who have inventory that found that it solved the problem off to the races. So thrilled about that. So let's go a different direction. In your business, you, your team, your director of operations, your marketing person, your content people, your coach, you're creating these new initiatives. Let's try this. Let's test this. And one of the things that we've observed is there's just how people react when the strategy doesn't work. So I'm curious for you, like you launch something, it doesn't work the way you want it. Like do you look to the people? Do you look to the system? Do you look for the overall strategy? Like how do you course correct to make sure that the team doesn't feel depressed when you try something and it doesn't work? Yeah. Well, I had a moment recently where I realized our strategy wasn't working. And it started by my videographer offending me. We recently brought on our own in-house videographer and editor our videographer is amazing. He's one, two, me. He's been on staff for about six weeks now. And the first week on staff, we had five listings to shoot. And the first listing shoot, I roll up with my phone. And I'm like, OK, I want to do a listing real with big captions and sound effects and speed routes. And here's a bunch of examples of other agents doing this. And he looked at me and he goes, Shannon, what are you doing? I go, what? This is what we do. We do big captions. He goes, this doesn't match your brand. This trend is so noisy on social media. It's dying. And it looks like AI. And he has it really done a lot in real estate. Like he's an Emmy award-winning videographer. He makes movies. And now he goes, Shannon, you have to stop your sales voice. Stop trying to sell something and talk to the camera like you're talking to a friend. If we think of the influencers we follow outside of real estate, they're not doing sales commercials with big captions. Could you imagine? Like that wouldn't go over well. But real estate agents for whatever reason were super salesy with these listing videos. And I have committed-- like we're doing a complete rebrand. You will no longer see listing rules with big captions or speed ramps or sound effects. It's going to be more of like, I'm talking to a friend very natural and casual because I'm worried with AI taking over social media. People aren't even going to want to go on social media anymore. Because you're like, is that even real? Is that even you? Right. Right. So that is like strategy. Just people, like bringing on the right person to realize we got to make an adjustment here. You're videographer. We should connect with Tim Smiths. He would never call Chris Stacey his videographer. It's like, he's a cinematographer. Like the person you've hired, films, TV, commercials. But I think about Caleb. But I'm spacing on his last name. But I was actually introduced from Gary Vaynerchuk. He was Gary's right hand video guy for a while. And he talked about the mistake that a lot of people make, which is they look at everybody else's content. And they do some me too variation of it. And he said, if I look back over the most productive, content that actually solved the problem, content that actually attracted clients, content that elevated your brand, his formula was real simple. He said, you have to get honest about what is the fundamental problem that your client, the person that's watching, what are they experiencing? And then what is your unique perspective on the solution or the insight? And he said, that content makes, now you have something that's unique and it speaks directly to your customer base. Thoughts on that, I'm just curious. Yeah, I mean, we're just complete. I used to be way too salesy. So for example, we just listed a home that's two homes under one roof. There's an attached apartment. And instead of starting the video with, welcome to this two homes under one roof, talking in the camera saying, there's a real problem out there. Kids are moving back in with their parents. Adults are taking care of their parents. Most homes don't solve that problem. But today we're going to introduce you to a floor plan that does solve the problem. And very different tone of voice, no big captions. That's going to be, I believe, the new trend. And I'm done with the salesy stuff. And you'll find it over on my YouTube as well. We're talking about the lifestyle first. We're sharing what it's like to live in the neighborhood, the town. And I can't believe them on a real estate agents that are not using YouTube for listing marketing. I mean, we just, we closed a $4 million home where the buyer literally came from our YouTube video. Wasn't even in the market for a home. YouTube's the second most visited website in the world. It is crazy how much opportunity there is right now for agents to do listing marketing on YouTube. I concurled double down on it. I was looking at a report. So a friend of mine, we're looking at Reluca Monet, who used to run Google's advertising for the car business, car industry, real estate, and mortgage. When she did a talk for us in like 2014, 2015, she cited the Google and NAR study that said 50% of people that are shopping for real estate are looking on YouTube. So that was a decade and a year ago. Today, that number 71%. 71%. So. So I look online, I'm like, oh, I see this property on realtor or whatever. And then I go to YouTube and I do a search there. And now I get to see you in this property in a much different way than I would see on any portal. So I love that you're doing that and shout out to Aaron, Aaron Chiuo, one of our great coaches. He's helping lead the way on that. I can't wait. I'm going to definitely, we should link up, Brandon, her YouTube channel to this show on the podcast or if you can check that out. Okay. Let's go a different direction. As you grew the team, what was the hardest thing for you to let go of, but once you did everything changed? The hardest thing to let go of is probably everything, right? Like I the mindset, I can do it faster myself. It'll take me more time to explain this to somebody. I can just do it. I can take on this client. Like I've been doing this for so long. I could do a better that type of thing. But man, if you surround yourself with a really good team like I have, it is so freeing. I post on my Instagram the other day. I mean, I'm blessed to have over 100,000 followers on Instagram. It's so crazy. But I am almost 42 years old. I've been in real estate, some form of real estate since I was 19 years old, leasing apartments. This is the first year of my entire adult life. I can honestly get to experience what a traditional weekend is like. We bought a cabin. Like we're up at our cabin this weekend. I have not experienced a traditional weekend. I'd be lucky to maybe get Sunday. I mean, I'm open houses, showings. And I'm 42 years old, basically finally getting to experience a weekend. And I'm a mom with three kids. And it's crazy. And I couldn't do that without my team. So it's hard to let go. Obviously, you have to let them fail. They're not going to get every listing consult like you would, but you just have to do it. I mean, it is. It's about quality of life for me. And I couldn't be all things to all people as a solo agent missing dinners with my family, every call, everything. So it's amazing. I know we were chatting about this at my apartment with my wife, everybody. And we do the same thing. We make ourselves accessible. We want the phone to be ringing. But at the end of the day, if we don't put up some guardrails and realize some form of what is my highest and best use, right? The burnout in real estate is very real. And I don't mean to burn out of people that aren't selling houses. I mean, the ones that are selling houses at real high volume. It's the realization that like you're a pro athlete and there's no professional athlete that plays 365 days out of the year. But in our industry, it's almost expected. So yeah, imagine you have an Instagram following of a hundred thousand and every seller's following you on Instagram. And you want to share your personal life. So do I want to share? I'm at my cabin on Saturday afternoon. And then they're stressed out their home as it's sold and wear a shenan. But yeah, they don't know. Like we work all the time. But obviously, I'm a super supportive family. My faith is super important to me. I mean, that helps just get through the long days. And it's so funny when somebody looks at me and says, oh, I've been thinking about getting in real estate. Your job looks like so much fun. I'm thinking about getting my license. Like, have fun. Have fun with it. There's so much that goes into real estate transaction. Right now, the hard work starts once the home goes under contract. Every day we're fighting to just get the home to closing. Right. What was the stat? I was just talking with David, the staff. What is the percentage of escrow's that fall apart in the greater Phoenix Metro? Do you remember that number? I mean, it's got to be 20 to 30% of just buyers canceling over inspections, loans falling through. So, yeah, I mean, it's tough. And it's so important who you choose as your real estate agent. And that's another part of my content strategy over on Instagram is like sharing that there are 55,000 license realtors in my market. And we are not all the same. Like, the experience matters right now. I concur. I concur. So back to the letting go part. Someone is listening right now, Shannon. They're like, well, it's easy for her because she has a team. You know, I don't have that team. I have to control everything. I'm doing searches at midnight when I should be in bed. I'm waking up early. I'm always feeling like I'm in a panic. That's the first mover to that can get that person some relief, but also put them in a position where they can actually get to the highest and the use of time, which is like, how do I meet with clients more often? Yeah. First move 100% is to get a coach. I was such a skeptic of coaching. I'm like, what? I don't need a coach. I'm so self-motivated. I have a great work ethic. I can go to YouTube, learn everything. I was so wrong with my idea of what a coach is like to be able to sit in a coaching call and have a coach that sees beyond my imposter syndrome. That knows where our team can go. That can help me figure out my hourly rate. Why are you getting up at 4 a.m. to make YouTube thumbnails? Why are you cleaning your own house, Shannon? Coach number one, because you have to have that accountability partner. It's just like, I have a personal trainer that meets me in my driveway three mornings a week. I cannot just say, oh, I can't work out today. She's there, whether it's dark out, cold out, hot out, like she's there. She's my accountability partner. I like to think of my coaching calls like a workout. Some days you're like, I'm so busy. I do I really have time for this. Then you get out of the call and you feel like you just had a great workout and you're like, ready to go. Number one, you have to have a coach because they will be able to see your business and you probably need a VA and all of that. From there, I agree. It's interesting. I know for myself having Dr. Julie Gerner, who is, she's just so intense. I actually get nervous sometimes. You four sessions like, okay, have I done enough? She almost fired me once already, right? So I'm like, I really got to pay attention. So I appreciate that perspective. I agree. So back to this outliers conversation. One of the things that happens to everybody, your level, my level, all of us that are out pushing hard is we have moments where results stall. So when things stall, what is the, what does your go to to start examining to figure out, is it just a moment in time or is there something off with the system? What do you do in that scenario? I think a stall is such a blessing in disguise because when you operate a busy team like ours where it's just go, go, go, like nonstop. When we do have a slow time where maybe it's, our goal is to list at least four homes every single week. Maybe it's a week we only have two. Like that is the time to look at our team meetings. We'll pull up trainings and go to YouTube, listen to podcasts and fine tune. All of your skills because this is a skills based business like we're constantly like talking about our scripts and things like that. So just using that time to become better and improve. I love that. I think you've met my client Maxine Gallons or you know, you know, run into them at a conference. By the way, she's turned 88 last Tuesday. Like how insane is that, right? And they'll do, you know, four or five million dollars in GCI this year. She's busy. She's newly married after a day, a guy for 38 years, four grandkids. But it's interesting when I asked her the same question. She said, time for as long as we've worked together, every time the market slows down, it is an opportunity for us to take a breather. Maybe even take a day off. But oftentimes just examine and re examine like what's happening. So it's interesting. You're the first person that's answered that, that question that way. But that's also a testament to how fast you're running. So when it does stall, it is kind of nice to get that break. But when you do that, what do you, what do you look at? Let's say, let's say it stalls for more than a week. Let's say it's a month where things are just a little bit off. The rates adjust the war that just, you know, it's taking place. And now, you know, when the middle is, you know, knock on wood two weeks, this thing is over in that scenario. Maybe you got a person on your team that they just feel off. What's the advice you give to that person to get them back on track? Well, being a part of our team, you're not allowed to complain about anything. You have to have a solution. It's literally in our minimum standard. So it's not the time to sit around and complain how everything is falling apart. But thankfully, we stay super busy. We don't have a lot of slow times. But like last week, I noticed that we have a lot of website traffic. So many people are going to our site. We've got our QR codes on all of our signs. We have over 40 active listings on any given day. And I noticed our leads coming in like our conversion rate was a little low. I asked the team, we went around the table, like, what's your intro when you talk to these leads? And they said, oh, well, we noticed you registered on our site. And I'm like, well, they don't know they register because sometimes we're just grabbing their info. So we just talked about like, how can we improve the scripts? If we didn't have more of a slower time, we would have never really looked into that. So now just before I just continue to improve. And I'm in team coaching. So not only am I coach, but my team has coached as well. So that's super powerful too. But thankfully we don't have a lot of a lot of the slow times here at the Gillette group. I love that. I love it. Congrats. Okay. So let's talk about my friend Craig suing. So I've known I knew Craig when he was a loan officer. And then I remember when he said, I think getting agents on TV could be the difference. It makes a difference for many of them to improve their brand. And you know, I work with people like Tim Smith and Jill Biggs and my guy, my goodness, Paul Rushforth, who's the number one team in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He has every billboard, TV, radio, direct mail, email. Like, if you don't know who he is, like you've been living under a rock, you kind of already have that going. And yet you chose to do a TV show with him. Help help me understand that. Was this like a defensive move so nobody else could? Or did you see? Did you see an opportunity to grow more that no one else saw? We've always been a video first brand. Everything we do is video. And it's funny when agents tell me like, oh, I'm not doing listing videos because I don't want to get my face on camera. I'm like, they're. Everything points to a home will sell faster and for more if there's a well-produced video. Go tell your seller you're not going to do video because you don't want to be on camera. Like that's not going to go over well. So I've been working with Craig with the American Dream for many years and it's helped my brand so much. Just the relationships, the interview is getting the mayor on my YouTube channel. Like so cool. And you know, he presented this new idea of our own show called selling Arizona, which will be a 30 minute show with just our team. And it's going to be amazing. We just wrapped up filming our first episode and it's going to be truly behind the scenes of what it takes to lead a team of 11 women that sell hundreds of homes a year. No drama between the team, but drama of I've got to call a seller that their fires loan just got declined while their U-Haul truck is in their driveway. Like the I always have joke like we need our own reality show because you wouldn't even believe the stuff we deal with on a daily basis. So we're super excited about it. I launched it over on my Instagram. And already has like 700,000 views and 10,000 likes. And I just secured a $2 million listing from somebody that she goes, it popped up on my four U page and I saw you have a new TV show, will you list my home? So it's already working. That is and it's not even released yet. So do we have an official launch date? It'll be probably in about two months. Yeah, with all that. So it's going to be good. It's going to be unlike any real estate reality show out there very much wholesome. Not yeah, it's going to be different. Shannon, that's your brand. If it was anything other than that, I mean, I have so many friends that get a million dollar listing, you know, like and and those shows. So I coach, this is funny. I maybe I shouldn't say her name. One of the very first housewives of Orange County. And that show was basically predicated on get the girls drunk and watch what happens. Yeah. So that won't be happening on our show. Yeah. I think yours is going to be more, how do we solve all these crazy problems with all these customers and keep it all together? So I mean, I can't wait. I can't wait. Craig's been a friend for a long time. Obviously, I admire everything that you've done. I think this show is going to be a huge, huge head. So I would be remiss if I didn't ask this question. There is someone out there right now who is going to say, you know, I've tried the content routes. You know, I get on Instagram or Facebook or Snap or whatever it is. And I'm just so inconsistent. And then it doesn't get the results I want. I don't get enough views. I don't know. I never get someone that says I saw your stuff. And yet you and I both know in today's day and age, when you look at all the look at NARs recent, you know, buyer and seller report, how people are finding agents is completely different today than it was five years ago, a decade ago, two decades ago. You've got the blend between content, AI, and then of course, oh, we just know where cause we're friends. But in a marketplace where there's 55,000 agents, I would joke, if you're in Phoenix, Arizona and you don't have a friend who's a real estate agent, you don't have any friends. The average person knows eight real estate agents personally. Right. Right. So what do you say to that guy or gal who, you know, maybe they follow you and they're like, I know I need to be consistent. Be beyond the obvious. How do you get the structure in place to be consistent? How do you get the structure in place? And then, you know, we're talking sort of content strategy earlier. I'd like you to go a little deeper on that too. So how does one get the structure to finally be consistent? And maybe are there any hacks to get more views and have it become a little better for their business? Well, I think real estate agents would be lying to themselves if they don't think potential clients are googling them because I'm getting these calls where they're going to YouTube. They're searching for best real estate agent in my market. They're going to your social media and they're looking at your feed. Like if you haven't posted since 2025, they're going to think you shut down your business. You have to be active on social and you can't get caught up in your views because even if 20 people are watching your story every day, that's 20 people. Like don't get caught up in that. Everybody starts at zero. Like I went from zero followers to 100,000 followers. It took years, but a lot of consistency. And also your planting seeds every single day and stop using social media to be a non-stop commercial and constantly selling people. Like those days are over. You have to build your brand. You have to show people who you are besides your job. And you have to be sharing the behind the scenes of your life on social media. And just don't get caught up in the views and you have to stay consistent. So don't like, don't focus on big production stuff. Like just post on your story like, hey, I'm at a team meeting or behind the scenes of a showing and watch. If you stay consistent with that for six months, you will sell homes. So do you think there's, I mean, you mentioned five stories a day. And I've seen data around five stories, 15 stories, 30 stories. I'm probably in average of like 12 stories. I'm still seeing and I'm curious what you are. More action on the stories, especially if I ask a question, if I do a poll, then you really get a sense of what's going on with all the people that you know, you know, and like and trust on those social channels. What's in their heads? What's your take on stories versus posts? You have like a, I do X amount of posts. I do Y amount of stories. I think not enough people are talking about the power of a story. Like that is where you build your community, sending DMs, commenting on other people's stories. I'm spending more times in stories, even more lately because I'm getting a little frustrated by scrolling through Instagram Realism. Like I don't even know if this is real or AI. Like is that a person or is that AI? And I don't want to watch AI stuff. Like I want to watch actual people. So that's where you, where people get to know you. Like if you're sitting in the front seat of your car, just talking into the camera, like your FaceTiming them. I mean, that's such a powerful way to build your brand. And you have to write down two to three things that make you, you beside your job, everybody has a personal brand. Even if you don't have kids or you know, you just like you might need to go get a dog and post about your dog. Like there's so much power in social media. You've got to be consistent. And if you are taking on a listing and that seller has chosen you out of the thousands of real estate agents in your market to represent their biggest asset when they're not selling for fun right now, they picked you. If you are just taking on that listing, putting a sign in the art and taking some photos, throwing the home up on MLS, that's a disservice that seller. So one of the things you can be posting over on your Instagram feed is content of your listings too. And obviously using YouTube. I think every single listing should be on YouTube. So powerful. What do you think about the behind the scenes work too? I've always been a fan of, you know, hey, you know, we're taking this property one two three four bananas for you putting on the market. We're looking at all the things we can do differently. This almost already listed was like you're not selling but trying to explain this happened. They want a different result. So we're going to work on all this stuff. What are your thoughts on just sort of like showing people how you think and how you operate in your business versus just that I'm out looking at houses and showing property. The future of marketing in my opinion is storytelling and like you're talking to a friend. Even the tone of your voice, nobody wants to be sold to and showing that behind the scenes and sharing the story of how you just helped your client get their home sold talking into the camera. And you can no longer use the excuse of you don't know how to go on camera. Come on now. You've got to just get your face out there. You're in sales. You talk to people at open houses think of the camera as your client. One you're talking to one person there and it's going to take some time. I can't believe it's still a conversation of people like scared to get in front of the camera but yeah behind the scenes people are going to Instagram to escape reality. They want to be almost watching a reality show like show behind the scenes of your life, show behind the scenes of your workout like share what you're doing and you're going to create an audience whether it's 20 people or thousands you're going to sell homes from it. And you know the the larger percentage of all my clients are female and I remind them you know a friend of my male robins who like her best videos of all time are like her laying in bed with like a little you know i-bouger and she's just like I just didn't feel like getting up today but I just want to tell you this is what I'm doing or her sweaty beddie coming out of the gym. Those v-vices like the perfectly polished videos we all know which ones perform better. Yeah and that's why I'm moving away moving away from the polished listing real with the big captions and the speed ramps like people just want authentic and real and just just try your best act like you're talking to a friend when you're talking on social media. I love it. Alright so as we wrap this up you know you dropped a lot of insight here. I love the leadership style. I love how you you know you created this sort of culture in your team that you're you're you're like guarded like hey this is how we do it here right and the fact that you have a no comparison no complaint all that stuff like you know that makes my heart saying as we wrap this up third time on the podcast I should have done my homework my bad you'll hit me next time you see me. What is the most important piece of advice you have and I'm going to give you two different scenarios. One is someone that is really doing well and wants to do better and the other is look I'm just I've been a little off and I'm trying to really get my you know get my thing going here. So speak to the person that is crushing it wants to do even better versus the person that is you know just feeling behind him needs to get themselves going. Well the person crushing it and wants to do it even better I would assume you probably potentially need just more help more delegation but how could you take maybe serving your clients to the next level we host monthly client appreciation events like there's so much you can do to implement that and then the person that's struggling man it could potentially be time to find a solid team to join it's hard to be a solo the wage out there right now, and I get. that everybody gets caught up in the splits. Like I don't want to pay a team leader X amount. We have to look at your annual income. And I can guarantee you almost like if you join a solid team, your annual income will be more and your quality of life because you will have that help. So it's hard to be alone out there. I just say to find that team, find that community. And thankfully like we get that just with the Tom Ferry ecosystem too. I appreciate that. All right. Yeah. Time for one last question. Because I'm not going to ask you about your listing marketing plan because you're not going to disclose that to the world on this podcast. But I want to know, what is the thing that you're asking sellers or showing sellers or the storytelling to help a seller price a home correctly in an environment where if they dramatically overpriced, they're going to be frustrated. So what do you do in there to help people win? There's two things when meeting with sellers. One line I like to use is even it-- because a lot of sellers are interviewing multiple agents right now. I mean, it's a tough market in Phoenix. So even if you don't hire our team, make sure you hire somebody that's using YouTube, something like that. But another thing is I put you out of this analysis of if this were my own personal home, here's why I would price it. And here's where I would price it. And I think when we talk like that, they understand, man, we're not trying to just get an easy sale here and price your home too low. Because sellers are not overpricing because they're greedy. They're overpricing because they're scared. They think they're going to leave money on the table if they price their home at market value or they want to leave room for negotiation. And as the expert, we have to help them understand why that is not the right way to price a home. And sharing like, if this were my personal home, I would price at this price. And here's why. Really helps. But also, standing firm as an agent and not being desperate to take on the listing. I took me a long time to get there. But we invest way too much in our listings, time, money, resources, not looking to take on an overpriced listing. But it's not easy. And you know what's really hard right now? In my market is we're pricing it right, even under market value, and we're still not selling it. So helping set the expectations with sellers that your home is going to take several months to sell. And it's OK, because you could have a well-priced home, a well-marketed home. And it still takes a few months to sell. Because one week in, they're like, why don't I have any offers yet? So you've got to set all the right expectations. And even the expectation that we're probably not going to get a lot of feedback from agents. Because that's another thing they're getting mad at. You're not going to get any feedback. Yeah. It's interesting I was having a coaching session I think I mentioned with Paul Rushforth, my client. And right now in Ottawa, get this. 40% of every listing sells. It's a 60% failure rate right now. Now they're the Washington DC. It's the capital of Canada. So there's always activity, but because of tariffs and because of sort of the netiness of what's been happening between the US and Canada, it's been obnoxiously slow. And Paul is a 300, 400 deal a year guy. Like runs a great-- he's going to be mad at me. 500 to 600 sales a year. Sorry, Paul, if you're listening. But he says to me, he said, it's always at the end of the day. It's location, condition, and price. He says, but it used to be-- I'm just paraphrasing what he said to me. He said it used to be, if I had two out of three of them right, the property would sell. Now, each one of those has to be perfect. And even then, we still have a margin of error. Thoughts on that? Yeah. And I think it's why it's so important that you have to be non-negotiable, communicating with your sellers at least once a week, especially using beacon, because I can confidently show a seller. It is not an exposure problem. I can get your home level of exposure that nobody can be. I can show you all the views, all the saves, everything. And if we don't have any offers and we're not getting any showings, it is-- in your home, doesn't have anything majorly wrong with it. It's a price thing. It's not an easy conversation, but you've just got to be confident. And if you're a newer agent in this market, like maybe team up with an experienced agent that has a strong marketing plan, like this is not the market to take shortcuts or not do a video of a home when you know you'll get more exposure. That's a good video. I love it. I appreciate you, Shannon, so much. And I'm so proud of you. I know the whole ecosystem is just to sit here and think, 2020 broke to today. It's one of the great runs in real estate. And what I love is, what's that song we ain't saying nothing yet? I feel like you're still just getting started. You're maturing. You're growing the business. You're helping all these clients. And you're building an extraordinary brand. So just from the whole community and myself, Kudos to you, my dear. Thank you. All right. Hey, make sure if you're not following Shannon Gillette on Instagram, make sure you do so. And check her out on YouTube as well. As again, don't just steal her stuff the way she does it. Find your way. But know that if you're putting out the right amount of content and you're doing an authentic way, it's going to build your brand and you're going to win. So, Shannon, thanks so much. I look forward to seeing you soon. And for my friend out there watching, make sure you give her a follow. See you soon. If you want more information about this episode, including my show notes, mentions, links, and everything else, make sure you visit TomPerry.com/podcast. That's TomPerry.com/podcast. Thanks again and talk to you soon.